Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus, and a method for controlling the same that prevent mistaken transmission due to re-entry of a destination when performing facsimile transmission.
Description of the Related Art
When performing facsimile (hereinafter also abbreviated as fax) transmission, a user directly inputs the fax number of a desired transmission destination from an operation unit using a numerical keypad and the like if the destination is not registered either in an address book or as a speed dial etc., of a facsimile apparatus, and performs the facsimile transmission. At that time, if the user designates an unintended number by mistake and performs fax transmission without being aware of the mistake, a document for fax transmission will be transmitted to a wrong destination (hereinafter also referred to mistaken transmission). This may cause not only a situation in which an intended recipient cannot receive necessary information, but also a situation in which serious information leakage occurs if the transmitted document is a confidential document that is not allowed to be viewed by a third person. In order to address the problems, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 02-200058 proposed a fax apparatus that requires a user to input, when transmitting a document, the number of a fax apparatus of a transmission destination twice, and transmits the document if the first input number and the second input number match each other.
Furthermore, in recent years, IP fax, which complies with ITU-T recommendation T.38, in addition to G3 fax, which is defined by ITU-T recommendation T.30 and uses an analog telephone network, have been in practical use. The IP fax is a function to perform fax transmission using, instead of the conventional analog telephone line, an IP network, and can perform, even if one LAN cable is physically connected, transmission to different communication networks by designating a transmission mode from among Intranet, NGN, VoIP GW, and the like.
In this context, “Intranet” refers to an extension line network that uses IP-PBX, and “NGN” refers to a public IP network provided by the NTT and to a communication network that has the same telephone number system as that of an analog public telephone network. Furthermore, “VoIP GW” connects the Intranet to the public telephone network, and connects, via the Intranet, to a G3 fax apparatus that is connected to the public telephone network. In the transmission using these communication networks, connection to a transmission partner is made by a procedure that is called SIP, and the transmission partner is designated by a telephone number. A user can perform fax transmission to the desired transmission partner by designating the fax number of the transmission destination and a communication mode.
However, the above-described conventional technique has the following problems. The above-described conventional technique requires the user to input the fax number of a transmission destination twice, and thereby prevents transmission of a document to an unintended destination due to a typing error. The mistaken transmission can be prevented when the transmission destination can be specified by a fax number. However, when it is possible to select a communication network to connect to as in the case of the IP fax, the confirmation of a fax number is by itself not sufficient to prevent the mistaken transmission.
For example, assume an IP fax apparatus that is connected to both the Intranet, serving as an extension line network, and the NGN or the VoIP GW, serving as an external line network. If a user tries to transmit, using this apparatus, an internal document to another IP fax apparatus connected to the Intranet, and designates, as a communication mode, the NGN or the VoIP GW by mistake, the IP fax apparatus will call the external network. Here, if there is, in the public telephone network to which the apparatus is connected via the NGN or the VoIP GW, an apparatus that has the same number as that of the IP fax apparatus in the Intranet to which the user tried to transmit the internal document, the internal document will be transmitted to the external IP fax apparatus, resulting in information leakage.
Furthermore, since the IP fax is not yet widespread, an IP fax apparatus may have an external line connected to an analog public telephone line in order to connect to the conventional G3 fax, and an extension line connected to an in-company Intranet. In this case, similarly to the above-described case, if there are fax apparatuses having the same number in the public telephone line and the Intranet, transmission to an unintended destination will be likely to occur by a user designating a wrong communication network to connect to.